


socializing for dummies

by dboymin



Series: welcome to the hate club [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Humor With Feelings, M/M, Middle School AU, Slow Burn, bad insults, but are they ever at school these boys..., side markhyuck, they're all done with dh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 07:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14890364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dboymin/pseuds/dboymin
Summary: it all started when jaemin and renjun had to room together during a school trip. hint: don't spend time with your enemy if you want to keep your life stable.!!! can be read as a stand-alone !!!





	socializing for dummies

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone!! I had this thought of a renmin sequel to my first nct fic for a while, but only recently I decided to actually write it and BOY it is the longest thing I've ever written oh my goddd.
> 
> Technically it's a sequel, but I mentioned all the essential details from the first fic in this one, so you don't have to read the first part to understand everything, cool huh. Also if I made any dumb mistakes on the way then sorry ahjsajjh
> 
> Hope you will enjoy because I sure did! And, uh, happy pride month babes uwu

Jaemin leaned down to reach a bottle of apple-flavored water from his backpack. The sudden rut on the road made the whole bus jump up and down and Jaemin’s backpack flew to the side meeting only an obstacle in form of Jeno’s foot, though some things had already managed to fly out of it. Jaemin was cursing under his breath as he was collecting his three waffles, two packs of jellies and that bottle of water from under their bus seats. This was just a top of the iceberg of the food supplies he and his friends brought with themselves for the school trip. Events like these didn’t happen often, so you had to cherish to the maximum what had been given to you! Food included and highlighted.

His struggles went unnoticed by his two best friends: Jeno, who obviously had to be feeling Jaemin’s heavy backpack crushing his foot, and Donghyuck, who was sitting behind Jeno and was clearly preferred telling an overdramatic story or one of his vivid dreams.

“…and then we teleported to your grandma’s house in Daegu,” Donghyuck kept on talking until Jeno interrupted him.

“My grandma doesn’t live in Daegu, Hyuck,” Jeno’s concerned rise of an eyebrow augmented the power of the sentence.

Donghyuck tilted his head, clueless. “She doesn’t? Where does she live then?”

“Incheon… Near the seaside.”

“Shit,” their designated storyteller pressed his head to the back of Jeno’s seat, concentrating hard.

Renjun, who was sitting behind Jaemin, to Jaemin’s great annoyance, gave him a helping hand in the thinking process. “Doesn’t Mark’s grandma live in Daegu?”

The rest groaned, Jaemin still from under the seat. Donghyuck and Mark had been dating for over two months yet the younger still could go days about their memories together or what Mark was up to at his art school or what Mark said the day before etc etc. These outburst would be understood if the two knew each other for these two months only but they were best friends for so many years before Donghyuck’s eventual confession. It was surprising he was still so hyped about anything Mark Lee…

Jeno sounded offended. “Do you even remember my surname?”

“Yeah, sure, Park Jeno.”

Jeno struck him with a death glare.

Donghyuck smiled with a growing shade of fear. “I’m joking! Lee Jeno. But it’s not my fault my brain is like that! That’s why I’m not smart like you guys! It’s my low memory-“

At that moment Jaemin emerged with a bottle of apple water in his hand and turned to face the scene. “Hyuck’s so focused on Mark he doesn’t remember shit,” he concluded.

The accused opened his mouth theatrically. “Look! It’s just because we, Jeno and I, have conflicting after-school schedules! We just don’t talk like back in the day!” he then smiled nervously at Jeno who refused to interact and turned around to face the front of the bus. Donghyuck leaned out of his seat and poked Jeno on the shoulder. “We can still fix it!”

Jaemin shook his head and put on his earphones switching on the half-asleep mode.

***

“Na Jaemin!”

He turned around to see one of his other friends from their class, Hina, waving at him to come closer to her and her group of friends. Jaemin left Jeno, Donghyuck and the Chinese guy he didn’t like next to the front of the bus and himself went further into the crowd where the girls were standing.

“Yeah?” he replied to Hina. The two were pretty close friends since they lived on the same street and their parents knew each other well. Also, both of them were only children so they had more like a sibling-like relationship with all the I’ll-tell-your-mom quotes going on.

Hina made an uneasy expression and gestured at her closest friends. “So there’s only five of us, not six, because you know, fever season, so I had to sit alone this way. Wanna sit with me on the way back? You guys can kick out Donghyuck to sit alone or something.” Then she stuttered because she realized what it would mean. Donghyuck with nothing good to do is hell of a disturbance. “Or just Jeno maybe?”

Jaemin shrugged and smiled lightly. “Alright with me.”

The girl nodded, satisfied. Jaemin was sleepy after the bus drive and wanted nothing more than to lie on the bed in the room he would share with Jeno and Donghyuck and maybe open a bag of Lays one of them probably had smashed to powder during the drive. Nothing more than that, he thought and moved back to his group of friends. The sky was already quite dark so he probably wouldn’t have to wait long – one of the teachers would give them the keys and they’re going to sleep after the journey.

When he walked up to Donghyuck and Jeno, they were still arguing about their questionable relationship. Donghyuck was counting out things they could do together starting from that day to improve their friendship and Jeno rallied him by saying he was just reciting date ideas for his future dates with Mark.

Jaemin really didn’t want to interrupt such a discussion, but first things first.

“Did they give us the room keys already?” he asked his best friends.

Donghyuck answered first. “Ren-“

Then the voice of their homeroom teacher blasted from just behind him. That woman had a healthy voice, you could say – for example, Jeno automatically covered one of his ears.

“CHANGE OF PLANS – GIRLS HAVE TO TAKE THE LARGE ROOMS AND BOYS TAKE THE GROUND FLOOR ROOMS, TWO BOYS FOR EACH, I TAKE NO COMPLAINTS,” she was holding a phone with her shoulder and leafed through the bunch of papers she was holding in her hands.

Jaemin blinked. Man, the complications that have to be encountered every school trip… He looked at his friends and quickly grabbed Jeno.

“We’re rooming together,” he stated.

Donghyuck snorted. “No, you’re not. I’m rooming with him so we can improve our friendship.”

Jaemin laughed at it. “I picked him first.”

“Uh,” Jeno interrupted them, “actually Hyuck booked me first when you were sleeping.”

“What! This is unfair! Who should I room with, huh?”

Donghyuck turned around to look at the crowd. He had to tiptoe. “I don’t know, everyone seems paired up…” and at that moment, he hit his forehead, realizing something. “Renjun isn’t!”

He waved at the short boy heading their way. Jaemin wanted to call a marching band to accompany his oncoming laughter. He? Should what? Room with, ew, Huang Renjun? No fucking way.

Actually, why wasn’t that bother of a person bothering Donghyuck all this time? Where had he gone, huh? Phew.

Renjun, with no knowledge of what was going on, came up to the group.

“I tried to get us a key on my way back but Miss Ahn was yelling at the driver so I couldn’t,” he explained.

Donghyuck waved at it with his hand. “No difference, we’re all roomed in rooms of the same size. Speaking of which, you’re rooming with Jaemin for the trip!” he did a magician-like pose to accent his sentence.

The Chinese raised his eyebrows. “No, I’m not? Nightmares?”

“What nightmares, seriously,” Donghyuck laughed briefly. “I can’t let Jeno down.”

Jaemin didn’t even want to interrupt, he knew the Chinese boy wouldn’t agree to that plan, their hatred for each another was mutual. There was a time when Renjun and Donghyuck were very close friends, but then they had a fight and Renjun ended up being rude to him and his other friends, namely Jeno and Jaemin. But then Donghyuck had to get all soft for his crush on Mark Lee and turned for help to the only gay he knew, namely Renjun, his ex-friend. And suddenly all of them were friends, except of course the crooked relation between Jaemin and Renjun who hated each other with passion because why would that have to change.

Renjun shrugged, not even looking once at Jaemin during the whole conversation. “Whatever, I’m going to be spending time in your room anyway.”

Jaemin made a disappointed ‘tss’ noise. He was let down. Renjun had to be very weak to agree to such a thing. Or there was a different reason. Weird. Jaemin had to be wary.

***

Jaemin threw his small baggage on the nearest bed to the doors and fell down on the mattress. Maybe it won’t be that bad, he thought, maybe Renjun wouldn’t talk to him and would leave him alone.

Second after having that thought, he understood it won’t be the case.

“You left me a bed near the window? You know how cold it will be later?”

Jaemin felt a headache coming. “What, I should have taken that bed for myself then?”

Renjun looked at him with deep sharpness in his eyes. “Exactly.”

Jaemin groaned quietly. Damned Donghyuck.

While the taller was swiping through his phone, Renjun opened his travel bag and began unpacking. When he noticed that he forgot to bring his shampoo he sighed deeply.

Jaemin on other side of the small room rolled his eyes. “Don’t get so overdramatic over a window.”

The shorter turned around swiftly. “It’s not-“ his eyes fired up but then he decided not to waste his time and energy. “Stick to your phone,” he commanded and turned to the travel bag again to continue unpacking.

He wasn’t hoping for an answer, but still he got one.

“I’m sticking to my phone perfectly fine, it’s you who whines about everything. You agreed to this arrangement just to piss me off? You’re having fun?” Jaemin threw words while not lifting his eyes from the phone screen.

Renjun had to turn to look at him again. “Why are you acting like a victim? We’re the same.”

Now Jaemin felt obligated to look up from the game. “How are we the same, huh?”

“I didn’t lie,” Renjun shrugged. The thing the Korean particularly didn’t like about him was that he always seemed to think he was right and that he knew more than the whole world could imagine. What a mentality…

Jaemin yawned quietly. All of these revelations made him forget he was sleepy and it was already dark outside. He lifted himself from the bed and opened his small suitcase to take the necessary things. Soon, Renjun collected some objects in his hands and was going to exit the room. While he was passing Jaemin’s bed, he tripped over his shoe. Jaemin instinctively looked up.

“I’m going to sleep in Donghyuck’s room,” said Renjun. “It’s already too cold near the window.”

Jaemin shrugged. “He’s taken,” he had to point out.

Hearing that, an artificial smile grew on Renjun’s face. “Well, don’t you think all gay people are perverts who sleep with each other?”

Jaemin blinked and made the same smile. “You didn’t lie.”

***

Donghyuck threw his arm to the north, trying to reach one of the bowls. Renjun looked at him with confusion.

“You can just ask for help,” he pointed out, the bowl was the nearest to him.

The younger shot him a death glare. “I won’t ask for help from someone who directed an invasion towards my sleeping self.”

Renjun rolled his eyes. That morning Miss Ahn loudly entered Jeno and Donghyuck’s room where he was also sleeping to inform them, loudly, that any kind of inter-room movement was not allowed after 9pm. Which meant, Renjun should be sleeping in his room and not in someone else’s. But, really, his friend was overreacting about his beauty sleep – anyway they would have been woken up by 8am to do some stupid activities…

Jeno shook his head and reached to give Donghyuck his desired bowl. Donghyuck thanked him with a hum.

Meanwhile, Renjun felt like eating an egg.

“Hey,” he pointed at the handful of eggs sitting peacefully far away from him. “Jaemin, give me an egg.”

The boy to the farthest to right of the group of friends looked with complete lack of interest at Renjun. He pretended he hadn’t heard his command and poured himself juice from a pitcher.

Renjun hissed to himself. He wanted to eat that egg… If it wasn’t for that meddling Jaemin…

“Na Jaemin!” he said louder and when he got the wanted attention he continued. “Pass me an egg.”

He got a sneaky smile in response. “Why don’t you get up and get it yourself?”

“Because people should help each other. But I guess you don’t count.”

Jaemin took the plate with eggs in his hands and placed it even further away from Renjun.

The Chinese’s eyes fired up. That was not the end.

***

The second night of the trip began with Jaemin taking out a plastic cup from under his pillow, going to the tiny bathroom they shared and placing his toothbrush in the new cup so that it wouldn’t touch Renjun’s toothbrush. You could never know what weird shit Renjun could stage, even with his toothbrush.

He looked with satisfaction at the separation and walked into the small room. Renjun was frantically trying to seal the window with a towel found in the closet. He was whining to himself and definitely not helping the situation. Jaemin shook his head and threw himself on his bed taking out his phone in the process. He was about to beat his record in a race game when his personal space was invaded.

“I’m sleeping here,” Renjun stated after aggressively sitting down just next to Jaemin on his bed.

Jaemin was too astonished to even say a word. He lost in the game and automatically moved farther away from the other boy.

Renjun nodded, agreeing with himself. “You can go freeze there.”

“What? I chose this bed, I’m sleeping here.”

“Why can’t it be more equal? It’s not like I chose that bed or even rooming with you. We have to live through this so you go there,” Renjun tried to explain, raising his voice. “I’m sleeping here, anyway. Do what you want,” he added. Seeing no reaction from surprised Jaemin, he cleared his throat and added: “You’re too fragile to sleep with me, so…”

That woke Jaemin up, his blood cells losing air and his lymph freezing. “You… you,” he turned to look at Renjun, “you want to sleep with me now?!”

The sheer terror in his voice made Renjun suddenly crack up. God, straight people were so funny.

Jaemin didn’t get the joke and kept on being frozen in place not believing what he had heard.

Renjun smiled knowing he had big heads up. “So fragile even thinking about a guy sitting next to you terrifies you, huh? So fragile you open doors for strangers in gardening gloves just in case there wasn’t a straightie behind the doors? So fragile you put ‘Ruler’ as your Facebook job description just in case? So fragile-“

Renjun was getting more and more comfortable when suddenly Jaemin jumped out of the bed and, taking his pillow with him, moved to Renjun’s bed under the leaking window.

That moment, that exact moment, was Renjun’s biggest win in his life up to that moment. He slipped under the ugly sheets and wished himself and himself only goodnight.

***

The next day they were sport activities and Jaemin couldn’t believe how fragile and weak he looked the night before. He couldn’t believe he let that bother of a human sleep in his bed and he couldn’t believe he put himself in a position of sleeping in a bed so cold because of the constant flowing air from the leaking window. It really was cold there. Really.

He was so frustrated he let Hina score a goal in a football game! This was against the sibling rules… Jaemin only hoped neither Donghyuck nor Jeno would hear about his failure.

Jaemin wasn’t fragile, he just disliked Renjun. Heavily.

Upon returning from an illegal walk around the area (which provided him with an occasion to mentally recreate the absolute frustration song Bet On It from the worldwide hit film High School Musical 2 released in 2007, Year of the Pig), Jaemin found himself standing in front of Donghyuck and Jeno’s room.

He was about to enter when he heard there was already a third person inside. Jaemin backed off and gloomily went to his room. He hated that feeling. Of losing. And being replaced.

***

A few hours later, Renjun went into his room and noticed that his bed was weirdly clean. He glanced at Jaemin quickly, because, shit, did he clean up Renjun’s stuff just like that? That would be weird… They were pretty much enemies and you didn’t to things like these for enemies…

Maybe he enjoyed cleaning? Out of Donghyuck’s friends Renjun knew Jaemin the least, so maybe there was a hidden germ freak somewhere there in his body? Renjun shrugged and sat on his, now empty, bed.

Huh, but where did he put those things? In Renjun’s bag? He opened the bag to see it empty, even more empty than it was after unpacking.

A red light flashed in Renjun’s mind. Something was off.

“Hey,” Renjun said weakly while dramatically trying to find for example his clothes, “you saw my stuff somewhere?”

Jaemin made an innocent pout. “Nope,” he popped the ‘p’.

Renjun narrowed his eyes. His things were… hidden.

He quickly stood up and went up closer to Jaemin. “Okay you sick fuck, where are my clothes?”

The other one shrugged innocently. “No idea,” he didn’t even look at the Chinese boy.

Renjun threw his hands in the air and laughed with disbelief. Oh, he was not giving up. He reached for Jaemin’s ugly suitcase and opened it wide.

“Hey! What are you-“ Jaemin left his phone on the bed and jumped to protect his baby suitcase.

“You had to put it somewhere!”

“Why would I put your clothes with my clothes?!”

Fair. Renjun stood up with speed of light and out of desperation opened the windows to their room wide sending the towel onto Jaemin’s bed.

To be honest, he didn’t expect to see a small puddle made out of his belongings just outside their window but there they were. He jumped through the window and landed in front of his favorite t-shirt, now dirty because of grass. Shit, it was already dark and cold and he had to deal with that predicament! What, predicament? No.

He had to deal with that crazy asshead first. He grabbed whatever he could from the ground and tried to climb up back on the window.

After the first attempt he could feel something cracking in his arm but it was probably just his imagination. He angrily went back for more stuff and threw it all into the room. Then after he was done, he ran at the window from a distance and managed to land back on his bed. He was exhausted and angry and couldn’t understand what he had done to deserve such treatment.

Their constant dissing was one thing, but this? This was a violation of human rights.

Renjun walked up close to Jaemin and decided that he shouldn’t punch him. Instead, he grabbed him by his shirt and with a help of adrenaline he pulled Jaemin out of his bed and pushed him onto the floor violently. Before the younger could do anything, Renjun was already sitting on his bed.

“This time don’t even say anything if you want to leave yourself a strand of pride,” Renjun hissed out.

Jaemin didn’t listen. “You have your bed over there, what are you complaining about?”

Renjun couldn’t believe he was so childish. That was a type of behavior he wouldn’t even expect from Donghyuck, he really thought Jaemin was more than a bully, but that day made him realize some people just can’t grow up. What did Renjun do to him anyway?

They wouldn’t be enemies if it wasn’t for Jaemin’s twisted way of thinking. Or not thinking at all!

Renjun turned in the bed so that he would be looking at the wall. He was going to sleep in his day clothes, he was going to just fall asleep and wake up and tell the rest how crazy Jaemin really was. Apart from that night, they had a night more left and then just few months before the graduation. And then in high school he hoped he wouldn’t have to see Jaemin. At that point, he could sacrifice meeting with Jeno, Donghyuck and Mark if it meant he could be avoiding Jaemin. That was too much.

He could hear Jaemin standing up. “Hey, you can get out of my bed now,” he said quietly.

Renjun pretended to be sleeping.

Jaemin patted him on the arm. “You’re not sleeping, aren’t you?”

Renjun continued what he was doing.

The patting stopped and he could feel a shift in the balance of the mattress.

“I’m sleeping here,” said Jaemin. “So, you can go now.”

Renjun felt annoyed and accumulated as much of the sheets as he could take now that Jaemin was sitting juts next to him. He could sense what would be coming next. “I’m not going anywhere,” he responded.

“This is my bed and you’re not kicking me out of here two days in a row.”

“Shut the fuck up and let me sleep.”

“I’m going to sleep here, I am-“

Renjun held on to the sheets he had collected. “Do whatever you want but shut the fuck up.”

Soon he could feel further shifts on the mattress and the sheets he was holding felt a pressure coming from their other end.

“Don’t try anything suspicious,” Jaemin warned Renjun from his end of the bed.

“Not in your wildest dreams,” the Chinese shot back.

And they fell asleep, Renjun facing the wall and Jaemin almost on the point of falling onto the floor from the edge of the bed.  
***  
Renjun’s dream was honestly weird. Jeno and Chenle from second year were selling strawberries in front of his house and Renjun’s mom was chasing after them with a hammer. It was summer, so Renjun was sitting on a balcony observing the scene and he could feel the rays of sun warmly embracing him. He took out a chocolate box from his pocket and when he opened it he could see the chocolates were made out of silver. He threw one of the silver chocolates from the balcony and knocked out Chenle. 

When he was in the state of being half-asleep half-awake he was trying to return into the dream to see if he could knock Jeno out as well. In the process he tried to untangle from the sheets he was trapped in because shit it was surprisingly warm for his standards.

Then he woke up completely because that surely wasn’t a piece of fabric, it was a human hand. Renjun opened his eyes wide and immediately stiffened realizing what situation he was in. Now, that was a predicament.

He could definitely recognize that the hand belonged to Jaemin and similarly the rest of the body had to belong to him as well… The rest of the body… That was sort of hugging him… It was surprisingly comfortable, he couldn’t lie. The idea of cuddling with his enemy who went crazy the day before was, uhm, unsettling, but because Jaemin was taller than him his body provided all-inclusive warmth. Renjun weighted the arguments – he could wake Jaemin up and have a good reason to make fun of him, or, he could pretend to still be sleeping and wake up together with the alarm clock.

Falling asleep after waking up felt always nice, thought Renjun and closed his eyes, preparing to fall asleep in that comfortable warmth.

But then. He opened one of his eyes. What if, he thought, it was all a set up. Jaemin could be awake right now and try to see Renjun’s reaction to the situation. After last evening, Renjun wasn’t sure what he could expect from the taller so he had to take the possibility of anything into the account. If Jaemin sees that Renjun didn’t mind his presence like that, it would be over. Renjun needed to keep his pride up.

At that moment he made a decision.

“Hey, Jaemin,” he said in a normal tone not moving an inch. “Let me go.”

Jaemin seemed to be slowly waking up judging by how he probably accidentally hugged Renjun closer.

“Jaemiiin,” Renjun wiggled a bit to wake him up and this time he succeeded.

It took the other a fraction of a second to realise what he was doing. He quickly and chaotically untangled himself from Renjun and almost fell to the ground with eyes open wide.

“Ah, straight boys these days,” whined Renjun as he was getting up and walking out of the bed through the back of the bed not occupied by Jaemin’s legs. “No knowledge of personal space whatsoever.”

He turned around and saw a very terrified Jaemin who was staring into air with a blank expression. Renjun rolled his eyes and cleaned his throat. At that, Jaemin looked at him.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

“For what? Nothing happened, right?”

Jaemin nodded and Renjun opened the doors to the miniscule bathroom. When he went in and closed the doors he smiled. It will be a great day.  
***  
The breakfast began as always, Donghyuck was telling everyone about his wild dreams and Renjun added the synopsis of his dream as well. Jaemin was sitting in his usual place, unusually quiet. He was slowly eating a sandwich which didn’t seem to be getting smaller with every bite.

Jeno reached to his backpack and Renjun raised his eyebrow. “What do you need your backpack for?” he asked.

“We’re hiking today?” Jeno answered as if it was the most obvious thing ever. It kind of was…

“Oh right,” Renjun swallowed a bit of food. “I forgot it’s already today.” Life makes time pass slower when it wants to kick your ass. “By the way, how is your socialization, you two? Friendship level back to its place?” he changed the topic.

“Yeaah!” exclaimed Donghyuck, happy that someone noticed his efforts. “I finally know the names of all his family members and I’m basically a Jeno expert now!” he patted Jeno who was sitting next to him. “We’re like blood twins.”

Jeno looked instantly depressed. These three days were the worst three days of his life.

Donghyuck pretended he didn’t hear him and turned his attention to Renjun. “Actually, sorry for making you live with Jaemin… But at least now you now he’s not that bad, right?”

Renjun breathed out a heavy sequence of laughter. Not that bad? He would explain it all to Donghyuck, but it was more like a material for a longer conversation.

Now he craved an egg. He turned his body on the seat so that he would be facing Jaemin. He was still the nearest one to the bowl with eggs.

“Jaemin,” Renjun began. “Give me an egg.”

Jaemin quickly looked up, dropped his sandwich on the plate and, as if the egg was a fire stone, he grabbed it and threw it into Renjun’s hand without a word.

Renjun pouted at the egg. He thought they would argue a bit as usual. Man, his only past-time activity recently… He shook his head and put the egg on his plate. When he looked at his friends he saw their surprised faces.

Donghyuck blinked. “What have you done to Jaeminnie?” he whispered and quickly glanced at his taller friend to see him picking up the sandwich with gloom in his eyes.

Renjun shrugged. “He did that to himself,” he concluded.

Donghyuck and Jeno looked at each other and agreed in their minds their Chinese friend was scary.  
***  
The forest was a great place for hiking, starting next to the main road in the area and surrounding one of the biggest mountains around. The huge number of middle schoolers were walking along the wide path and creating a lot, a lot of noise.

Jeno walked with Jaemin a little further to the front of the group and Donghyuck and Renjun could spend some quality time together. Which meant, Donghyuck could finally talk about important stuff.

“Mark got street-casted recently! God, his looks… I’m surprised he’s getting street-casted only now, I mean, Renjun, his looks!”

“Yeah, he’s alright.”

Donghyuck stopped. “Al..right? Are you sane on your mind?”

Renjun whined and dragged him by his wrist to keep on walking. “We’re going to get lost if you keep stopping like that.”

“You should get lost. Maybe that will enlighten you to see Mark’s visuals!”

“If someone heard you they would think Mark is a damn supermodel.”

“He is!”

Renjun just shook his head, but then gave it a thought. “If it wasn’t for his looks, you wouldn’t date, huh?”

Donghyuck opened his mouth, appalled. “What! He has a great personality, a lot of talent and-“

“I mean,” Renjun looked at him. “You wouldn’t get to the business and tell him your feelings if it wasn’t for how great he looked in red hair.”

“Phew,” Donghyuck waved his hand at that. “I still haven’t forgiven you for faking your dating experience! How could you go on telling me your advice if you didn’t know anything! I mean… the only people you’ve ever… I don’t know, cuddled was me and your dog, am I right?”

“Phew,” repeated Renjun obviously avoiding Donghyuck’s eyes, because he really wasn’t telling him anything at that moment. “Like it matters…”

Donghyuck nodded, thinking he was right. “Don’t worry, I’ll find you someone, I’m a good friend.”

“You have no say in such things!” laughed Renjun. “You don’t even know any guys who like guys beside you and me!”

“Untrue!”

“Untrue?”

“Okay, true. But I’ll help you, don’t worry,” admitted Donghyuck.

“Am not!”

Donghyuck rolled his eyes. “Whatever. By the way, you’re coming with me to Mark’s showcase that’s soon, right? I’ll probably get the tickets for the other two too, I’ll have to remind my amazing boyfriend to get enough of them…”

Renjun nodded to agree. The way he called it… It wasn’t ‘Mark’s showcase’, it was basically a bunch of performances from the school he went to and he was one of the lucky ones who were going to perform there.

Lovestruck people acted weird.

***

An hour into the hike, Renjun was sloppily walking near the end of the group praying to some forest gods to come and make him fly back to Seoul. The sun was shining too bright and the path definitely wasn’t steep.

He looked to his left and right and saw the usual class losers he liked to hang out with during the breaks before he and Donghyuck reconciled. He still talked to them during breaks, because freaks don’t let freaks down. Renjun sighed. The teachers were crazy if they thought they all were going to make it without severe exhaustion and/or death.

The only person who wasn’t expected in the back of the group, a school athlete after all, was Jaemin, but he didn’t count because he was still pretty active, walking in all directions to take pictures of the surrounding nature. He had the energy to be bored… What a lucky person, thought Renjun.

A few minutes later, Jaemin was still energetic and kept on stopping or kneeling to take a photo of an animal or a flower. Renjun on the other hand kept on wiping his sweat off from his face, it was getting hot at that hour.

He then saw a pretty purple flower growing next to the side of the path he was walking on. He looked at Jaemin who was focused on the other side of the path. Sigh, he couldn’t let him miss such a pretty flower.

“There’s a plant here,” Renjun shouted at Jaemin. “It’s pretty, take a picture.”

Jaemin quickly came to do so and Renjun asked himself why did the other do everything he asked for. He did once ask a shooting star for a handsome servant boy, but not for, ew, Jaemin. That wasn’t right.

Jaemin kneeled on the ground to get a good angle and Renjun was walking so slow that he eventually stopped and turned around to watch him. Once Donghyuck asked Renjun who he thought was the most handsome guy in their year. Renjun answered Huang Renjun, but despite their hatred for each other, Renjun had to admit Jaemin was really handsome. They all knew it though, boys and girls. Jaemin had a groundbreaking smile and Jaemin was tall and Jaemin had perfect hair and Jaemin this and that. Common knowledge.

Phew, the whole class could watch him do anything to admire him, but Renjun couldn’t and wouldn’t because he didn’t want anyone to think he had any positive thoughts about Jaemin. Even though that was the only positive one, especially after he threw his all stuff into the bushes last evening! But yeah, of course Jaemin was handsome and like it was with all good-looking people, you always hated them less just because they’re fun to watch.

Soon, Jaemin stood up and only glanced at Renjun to see why he was still standing instead of walking. Renjun shrugged to himself and started walking again. At that moment they were sort of walking together, so Jaemin cleaned his throat and began talking.

“So… You didn’t tell anyone about what happened in the morning?” he asked shyly.

Renjun raised his eyebrows. Jaemin shy?

“Morning? You mean- aaah,” he realized and then laughed at him. “So this is why you’re so weird today!”

Jaemin looked at him quickly. “You didn’t, that’s good,” he said. “Don’t tell anyone.”

Renjun was actually surprised. In his mind he was sort of analyzing why Jaemin would act so weird, maybe something happened in his family, maybe he was feeling sick… But it was just his straight pride acting up!

“Yeah, alright, but there’s nothing to be ashamed of!” Renjun concluded but seeing Jaemin’s terrified face expression added, “Some people prefer hugging pillows, but there were rough conditions…”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know why this hike takes so much time.”

Renjun nodded suddenly remembering he was supposed to have no stamina and he even laughed a few seconds before… Stamina was weird. “I feel like dying.”

Jaemin hummed in agreement. “I heard the place we live in has to have a sanitary check so that was why we had to disappear.”

“Shit, really? I was on some camps before and they let us stay in during the checks, what the fuck…” whined Renjun and then saw a squirrel with the corner of his eye. He grabbed Jaemin’s arm and pointed at the squirrel so that he could take a picture since he had his phone out.

They stopped to capture a glimpse of the animal and then another one climbed the same tree.

“What an occasion,” whispered Jaemin and went a little closer to them.

Renjun observed the squirrels and suddenly one of them attacked the other. Jaemin took a step back, stepped on Renjun’s foot and the attacked squirrel fell to the ground. The two boys waited for it to get up but it didn’t.

“Is it dead?” Renjun asked really nobody.

“I don’t know,” Jaemin answered quietly.

The squirrel wasn’t quite moving, but a different problem occurred suddenly.

The boys looked at the path. It was diverging a bit further from where they were standing. But they couldn’t see anyone from their year or anyone in general in their proximity. And the only sounds they could hear were the sounds of nature.

“Shit,” said Jaemin.

“We’re lost,” Renjun stated the obvious.

***

“This was a bad idea.”

“Returning would take us too much time…”

“Yeah, so choosing one of the paths was a better idea, right… Is this a snake?”

“Don’t fucking scare me keep walking!”

They walked in a line, because the path they had chosen was getting very narrow. Renjun was sure it was the wrong one, but Jaemin insisted that the other one was going to curve and meet this one at some point.

“Look,” Renjun began again from behind Jaemin. “I should take the lead, I have a great orientation.”

He smirked under his breath. It was a good one, he felt sorry for Jaemin for probably not getting the joke game.

Jaemin, of course, didn’t spot anything. “I don’t know, my mom said orientation skills come with learning how to drive. And you can’t drive.”

Renjun had to stop, eyes wide open. Did he just hear what he just heard? “Na Jaemin,” he took a deep breath. “I’m proud of you. It was unexpected, but I’m proud of you.”

Jaemin raised an eyebrow and turned around to face him. “What?”

“I did not expect a reference like that from you, but I guess it’s not that bad with you after all. I need to thank Dong-“

“Seriously, what are you talking about?” Jaemin seemed alarmed.

“Gays can’t drive, that’s the joke.”

“I-,” he looked disappointed. “You spot jokes in such details!”

“The only fun thing I do. This and crosswords.”

Jaemin’s lost expression came back. “That’s a joke too?”

Renjun shrugged theatrically. “Maybe? Everything is if you try hard enough,” he looked satisfied and passed the taller to take the lead. “I know it’s the hard to swallow, but us gays must get used to it,” he turned to face Jaemin and smiled cheekily at him, knowing he has the heads in the conversation. “You got that?”

Jaemin looked severely unamused and then after a while it hit him and he groaned. “What the hell, ten meters away from me!” he pushed Renjun to the front and wiped his hands against his own shirt.

Renjun was deeply satisfied and smiled to himself. “Straight guys drop dick jokes every second, but when I do it it’s bad…” he said under his breath and gladly began walking along the narrow path.

They continued walking without a word for about ten minutes and then Renjun saw that there is a brighter area ahead of them. He hurried to stop the forest monotony and Jaemin followed him. What they saw was a wide stream being a natural border between the dense forest they were walking through and a more sunny copse with smaller trees.

They were standing on the edge of the forest and both thinking about what should they do.

“The forest’s on the mountain,” began Renjun. “I think there’s no way we can catch up with the school so we should go down and find a street from which we can hitchhike or ask around the people.”

“You’re right,” agreed Jaemin. “The path seems to go up the mountain.”

Renjun went closer to the stream and examined the rocks in it. “I think we can cross the stream. But it’s wide and probably deep… It’s not safe.”

“These two rocks look stable.” Jaemin pointed at the biggest rocks. “If we concentrate the weight of our bodies there it should be alright. We’ll have to help each other.”

“Yeah,” said Renjun.

“I’ll go first,” offered Jaemin. “I have longer legs,” he explained with a smile.

Renjun couldn’t disagree on this one. Actually, they were working pretty well together.

Jaemin put his foot on the bigger rock and his other one on one of the collections of pebbles nearby. He wanted to put both of the feet on the rock but almost lost his balance so Renjun held his arm to help him regain it. Jaemin nodded to thank him without words and, with both feet on the rock, aimed for the next one. Leg after leg, he managed to get to the other side of the stream.

Renjun put his foot on the first big rock and then the next foot as well. He was balancing well so he was going to jump to the next rock but it was definitely too far away from him. He stood at a smaller rock and tried to bounce to the next big one.

“You’re okay there?” asked Jaemin.

The Chinese didn’t want him to think there were any problems appearing so he laughed it off. “If I can listen to Donghyuck’s vocal practices for auditions then I can do this!” he said cheerfully.

“What auditions?”

Renjun didn’t even look up, focused on the rocks. “For SOPA. Mark’s school.”

“I know, but he’s never wanted to do anything art-related,” the tension grew in his voice.

Renjun put his other foot on the next bigger rock and lifted himself up there. Shit, now that gap was wide. He needed Jaemin’s help at that moment.

“He told me he wanted to try out, so I’m helping him. Can you-“ he started, but got quickly interrupted.

“Why did he tell you that of all people?” Jaemin sounded different than usual again so Renjun looked up. He looked a bit angry, a bit broken.

“I don’t know, it doesn’t matter now-“

“This doesn’t make sense,” Jaemin said more to himself than to Renjun, turned around and started walking away from the stream.

“Hey!” Renjun shouted, stuck on the rock. “Help me get out!”

He didn’t get an answer, so he loudly cursed at him and then at himself under his breath for trusting his enemy.

***

Jaemin walked for about a minute straight through the grass and then realized he didn’t know where he was going. He stopped and observed the trees. They all looked the same! He was going to get lost and the sky was gaining more color so it was getting late… He shouldn’t have left Renjun like that. He should put the friendship drama aside in times of distress, really…

He turned around and quickly marched to the stream. To his great surprise, Renjun was standing already on his side of the stream, half of his body dripping wet. When he noticed Jaemin coming he yelled a war cry and probably was scheming a good way to attack him.

“YOU’RE OUT OF YOUR MIND,” he yelled from the distance. “I’M GOING TO RIP YOUR LUNGS OUT”

Jaemin suddenly wanted to turn around and run into the woods not knowing where to go. It’s your fault, he thought to himself, shivering inside. You should endure this. So he didn’t stop walking towards the wet duckling.

Renjun began to walk but doing that in wet shoes was uncomfortable so he dropped on the grass and took them off. He was sizzling angry at his roommate and was about to use his talkative fist for a good cause.

When Jaemin came to him he shot his head up and began his monologue.

“The moment we come back to Seoul you’re going to meet a therapist and talk to them about your anger issues! This is too much and I can’t believe I, the last person who would want to spend time with you, have to experience your hormonal phases! We both have our problems but I don’t project mine on your body conditions! My body had enough! I don’t get you!” he was shouting sentence after sentence to Jaemin’s face.

And no muscle of Jaemin’s moved. He was thinking about how Renjun really didn’t get it. It wasn’t about Jaemin’s hormones or anger issues, it was deeper… Should he just- Ah, fuck it.

Renjun proceeded to shout random insults at him from the ground and Jaemin just interrupted him half sentence.

“Yeah, you don’t get me!” he began. “You are the reason I’m an asshole to you! You think you can do anything you want to and manipulate everyone around you! You want me to change my attitude but how is it my fault that you butted into our lives from nowhere!”

Renjun looked concerned hearing that. “You ate some mushroom shit? What are you even talking about?”

Jaemin offered him a hand. “If we’re going to sit around we’ll never make it out of here,” he explained dryly.

The Chinese slapped his hand and stood up by himself, grass sticking to everything wet on him. He ignored the presence of the other boy and went in the direction a bit more to left from where Jaemin had come.

His unfortunate roommate followed him, shaking his head. “You want to know why I don’t like you?”

“Yeah, go on,” Renjun spit out.

“You were rude to my friends and suddenly they accepted you as if nothing had happened. I don’t understand why Donghyuck doesn’t mind having someone as fake as you as a friend.”

Renjun stopped and turned around looking particularly surprised. “That’s all? That’s the reason we hate each other? Because you don’t understand the history of my and Donghyuck’s friendship?”

Jaemin raised his eyebrow. “What don’t I understand? He’s friends with someone who rejected his friendship and how can I know what you want from him now? Why are you two suddenly friends, huh? What do you want?”

“You’re so dumb!” Renjun actually laughed. “Jaemin, you’re so dumb, it’s amazing! Has anyone ever told you you’re dumb? Because that was the dumbest thinking process I’ve ever witnessed!” he kept on laughing and Jaemin was at least a little confused at his reaction and blinked.

Renjun wiped his non-existent tears of laughter and cleaned his throat. “Let’s keep on walking, I’ll tell you a story, you dumb piece of shit,” he continued and walked next to the Korean boy.

Jaemin was really confused at that moment but listened to him, preparing in his head a good comeback.

“So I rejected his friendship, huh? He was my only best friend back then and I came out to him and he said something offensive to me, I don’t even remember now what it was, so naturally I was hurt and began avoiding him and being rude to him and his other friends, so to you too. Because like, how can I be friends with someone who doesn’t accept me? So he didn’t get, just as you right now, why I was mad at him and just thought I’m one moody bitch. So this is why we were passive aggressive to each other for that year. But then his supposedly straight ass came to me asking for help with his crush on Mark, so how could I refuse if I could make fun out of his change after a year of homophobic remarks!” he stopped the monologue and glanced at Jaemin to see if he was listening and it seemed like he was. “In the end we apologized to each other and gays stick together, we’re friends again. And Jeno had no personal problems with me, so we’re good too. That’s the story.”

Jaemin swallowed saliva. The way Renjun explained it seemed reasonable. Shit. Was he wrong all this time? He seriously thought there wasn’t a reason for why they had stopped being friends, Donghyuck didn’t talk about it a lot because at first “why talk about, ew, Renjun” and now “we’re friends again we should forget the old deeds”.

Jaemin felt guilty… He didn’t like feeling like this.

Renjun looked again at the path and lightly added a final thought. “I thought you were going to say you hated me because I’m gay, since that seemed to be the biggest motive for your homophobic clique.”

“No,” Jaemin finally said something. “I don’t care, do whatever you want even in front of me. I don’t like you as a whole person, don’t worry. Just the thought of you disturbing our group and taking away my friends from me was unnerving.”

Renjun hummed, realizing something. “So that’s the thing. You thought I was going to replace you? Donghyuck and Jeno still like you a lot, whenever the three of us meet they whine about you not being able to join them,” he shrugged. “I know I’m not completely a part of your group and I don’t want to be, actually. I know I don’t belong, you three are seriously close. That’s not my goal or anything.”

Jaemin nodded automatically. Shiiit. He felt bad for hating Renjun. He seriously felt like an idiot.

He gathered his inner will and said the words he thought he would never say.

“Truce, Renjun. Let’s not fight.”

Renjun’s eyes widened as if the other told him he was a reptilian. Then he shook his head .

“Alright. Truce. But don’t forget about it after we find our way.”

“Okay. I’ll try to control my… anger issues.”

Renjun smiled at him. “I hope so. I don’t have a lot of bones left.”

***

That evening they managed to find their way back to the place they stayed in and Miss Ahn nearly killed them on the spot. Donghyuck had to give some money to Jeno after betting for them being found the next morning the earliest. Jeno was more hopeful of their abilities, so he won.

Jaemin and Renjun had only a fraction of energy left after the day of walking, so they immediately collapsed onto their beds. Renjun had to confess after sleeping in his bed for the first time that it wasn’t that cold at night… Yikes. But, oh well.

The next morning the trip finished and the bus was waiting for them on the street ready to depart for the capital.

Jeno had completely enough of Donghyuck and wanted to hit his head against the window when he saw his dreaded friend patting the seat next to him when Jeno made barely a step into the bus. He turned around and saw no help in his closest surroundings so he wept inside and sat next to Donghyuck. He on the other hand threw his backpack onto the two seats in front of them to reserve seats for their two other friends.

The seat next to a window in front of Donghyuck was quickly used by Renjun who sat there comfortably but then turned around to see what his friends were up to behind him. He was hoping to steal some food from them since he had no time the last day (obviously) to buy any snacks for the drive back.

Jaemin slowly stepped into the bus looking at something on his phone screen. When he finished, Donghyuck yelled at him to come to the back of the bus. He saw that there was a free seat in front of them so that was where he was heading to. Oh, Renjun was sitting there.

Jaemin instinctively stopped near the seat, but the Chinese rolled his eyes the moment he saw him.

“Come on,” he moved closer to the window. “I don’t bite.”

“I know,” answered Jaemin and sat on the seat next to him. He opened his backpack and reached for his earphones when he noticed Renjun was observing him.

Jaemin looked at him and raised an eyebrow to indicate a silent question.

Renjun made an expression of i-don’t-know-what-you-mean and turned to the window.

When the bus moved Jaemin began untangling his earphones, but he could swear Renjun glanced at him again after pretending to be watching the view outside the window…

***

Jaemin stared at Hina as if she was an alien.

“I can’t sit here?” he repeated her words.

“Exactly,” she looked at her friends who didn’t try to interfere in the (almost) sibling wars. Then she turned back to Jaemin who was standing with a school lunch tray next to the table where they were sitting. “I mean, you were supposed to sit with me on the way back from the trip and you ignored me. So, find a new place to sit when your friends aren’t around.”

“Ah,” he smiled. “That’s because you didn’t remind me! How am I supposed to remember everything, Hina! Sorry, I’ll give you the best parts of my lunch as a repay,” he offered.

“No,” she noticed something in the background and looked at Jaemin with a sneaky smile. She pointed behind him. “Go sit with Renjun, ideally, huh? Just like yesterday.”

Jaemin’s eyes followed her hand. The Chinese was sitting by himself near the wall, passionately drinking vanilla milk. Jaemin made a ‘tss’ sound. What was he doing, eating alone. No wonder people called him a freak. He turned back to face the girls.

“Hinaaaaa,” he whined. “You’re being mean.”

“Go sit with Renjun!”

“Why would I sit with him?” he mumbled under his breath. He looked at her trying to keep his dignity and walked away from the table.

Oh, he could sit there. He crossed the whole cafeteria and sat down next to innocent thirteen-year-olds.

“Hi Jisung!” he smiled at Jisung and friends.

Jisung bawled his eyes out. “J-Jaemin-hyung? What are you doing here?”

“Eating. Eat up, kids,” he began eating cutting the conversation short.

***

A day later, the last thing Renjun wanted to do was to pretend to be listening to the lesson going on around him. He lazily looked at Donghyuck who was taking notes next to him.

“How do you even focus?” he asked in a sleepy voice.

“I think I need good grades.”

“You sing them a nursery song and you’re in. No need for good grades,” Renjun buried his head in his arms preparing for a quick nap.

Donghyuck smiled at Renjun. “Thanks. But good grades are alright from time to time.”

Renjun nodded out of duty. Then he realized he wasn’t going to fall asleep. He sat properly and thought about the next lessons during the day. And a sudden decision settled in his heart.

“I think I’m going to skip,” he said more to himself than to Donghyuck, but his friend heard that as well.

“Hey, don’t leave me.”

“I’m only here with my body, my soul is sleeping in the clouds…”

Donghyuck rolled his eyes. “You’re coming back later for the last lessons?”

“Probably, there’s not a lot I can do during these couple of hours. But I’ll see.”

“Alright,” agreed Donghyuck just as the lesson finished.

While the other kids began leaving to wander around the school, Renjun collected his belongings and without worries walked down the stairs to sneakily exit the school.

The problem there was that often there were teachers sitting near the exit during the breaks so you had to have the timing and skills to succeed. Renjun had both, and he had luck on his side as well. The key to walking out without anyone noticing was by going to the wall on the right and using the doors on the very right of the entrance. This way, the teachers couldn’t see you from their usual meeting point.

That technique didn’t work well in larger groups, but Renjun was by himself so he should succeed nicely. He went in the direction of the wall on the right and noticed that he wasn’t the only one lurking there. Obviously, every break someone was fleeing out of that hell of a building. This time it was a boy in front of him sporting a very familiar backpack.

Renjun greeted Jaemin and only then he noticed him.

“You’re leaving too?” the taller asked the obvious question, so Renjun didn’t answer. Instead, he looked discreetly in the direction of teachers and momentarily his vision line met the eyes of the janitor so he sprinted out of the school building whispering curse words.

Breaking the school rules always gave him a short-lasting energy boost, somehow…

He didn’t know whether Jaemin followed him or not until the other outran him while crossing the street.

“Hey!” Renjun shouted at him. “Stop bragging!”

“Where are you going?” he shouted back at the Chinese, his eyes sparkling from the tiny adrenaline dose.

“Uh, the mall!,” Renjun mentioned the first place that came to his mind.

“Aight!”

They stopped running at the crossing where nobody could definitely see them from the ground floor of the school. Renjun leaned on some shop’s wall breathing heavily. Sports really weren’t for him.

Jaemin on the other hand was perfectly fine and just briefly looked weirdly at Jaemin probably to mock him inside his head for that stamina.

Renjun lifted himself from the wall and motioned that they could go now.

The mall was just around the corner and it was a local standard place for kids playing truant of all age. There weren’t a lot of clothing stores but a spacious food court on the top floor made up for it. Also, there was a huge electronic store and a cute patio where most of the girls from their school had to take a picture for Instagram.

Donghyuck dragged Mark to the patio for one of their first official dates and Renjun cringed for years after finding that out.

“So, do you have anything to buy?” Jaemin asked and ran his hand through his hair while looking at the building in front of them.

Renjun thought a bit. “No, not really. I just like walking around here.”

That was true. Renjun enjoyed spending time at the mall, after lessons or during them. There was something alluring about places containing a lot of people each heading their way.

“Okay,” Jaemin looked at Renjun. “I have nothing to do so I’ll go with you.”

“Alright,” Renjun nodded and they began walking through the mall.

They went to see the new phone models in the electronics store, then they watched the rabbits hop around in a huge cage in the pet shop, then Jaemin wanted to buy his mom some bougie tea from a tea shop, but in the end he bought her probably the cheapest one in a grocery store saying gloomily that ‘she likes all of them anyway’. And then they ended up in the food court upstairs sipping strawberry milkshakes.

“I like the vanilla ones more,” Renjun judged the drink what made the other look at him with living disappointment.

“Strawberry ones are the best.”

“Show me the statistics.”

Jaemin took out the phone from his pocket without a flinch and began scrolling through something.

“You’re not looking for statistics, aren’t you?” Renjun blinked, caught off-guard.

“I am. Look,” he showed Renjun the screen. “According to this study conducted in 2004 in Seoul, strawberry flavor is preferred by 68% of recipients. Also-“

“You idiot,” Renjun snapped. “That’s from a glossy magazine!” he pointed at the text surrounding the ‘study’.

“What’s wrong with glossy magazines! You’re so full of yourself! Let people live!” Jaemin leaned back on the chair and began insulting Renjun looking forward to his comeback.

“You look like someone who studies glossy magazines! Probably models for them as well!” Renjun hissed.

Jaemin blinked and raised his eyebrows and Renjun looked at the ceiling and breathed out slowly understanding how it sounded.

“You know,” Jaemin began, amused. “I don’t think we should insult each other now that we’re not enemies. Turns out sloppy.”

“I agree.” Renjun looked at his milkshake, internally confessing the regret of being born to the drink.

Suddenly, a topic popped up in his head.

“Were you ever spotted by a teacher or something while skipping?” he asked Jaemin.

“Yes and she threatened to suspend me because it was during a test,” Jaemin made a shocked expression to highlight the lack of sense in her intentions.

Renjun widened his eyes. “That’s… wow. Dumb. Did she suspend you?”

“Noo,” Jaemin brightened up. “I bought her a chocolate box and apologized. But it was last year, I think so, I don’t know what she would do if I got caught again.”

Renjun nodded. “It’s hard to get caught here because of the door formation. But,” he bit his lip without thinking about it, “I think the janitor saw me earlier today.”

“Phew,” Jaemin rolled his eyes, playing with the empty plastic cup. “He’s harmless. I don’t even think he could remember the students’ faces.”

“Yeah, I guess so. But I have a bad feeling.”

Jaemin snorted and glanced at him. “Makes sense, you look like a tinfoil hat kind of a guy.”

The Chinese boy exaggeratedly acted offended. “Well, you look like a wood brain kind of a guy.”

Jaemin looked concerned. “Did you ran out of insult battery today?” he smiled lightly.

***

When Jaemin walked into the class the day after the school escape he noticed Donghyuck was tormenting Renjun with something.

“And this one? He’s our age and Mark knows him from some kind of a tournament. Looks good?” Donghyuck was probably showing the Chinese some pictures.

“I don’t know, he looks suspicious.”

“You’ve been calling them all this way! You’re suspicious too…” Donghyuck shook his head at his friend’s rebellious attitude.

Jaemin sat down next to Jeno and asked about what the others were doing.

Jeno shrugged. “I think he’s trying to match Renjun up with some people, but Renjun doesn’t feel like it,” he informed. “And Donghyuck thinks he’s helping, but all he does is talk about Mark pretending he’s describing these guys.”

Jaemin nodded. “So the usual.”

“The usual,” Jeno agreed.

The lesson soon started and after the register the teacher turned to the class. Her eyes wandered a moment through their faces and then she spoke up after spotting her targets.

“Jaemin, Renjun, you were asked to go to the teachers’ office during this lesson,” she said without any energy.

The two boys looked at each other, Jaemin surprised and Renjun with I-sensed-it plastered all over his face, and went out of the class leaving their things and classmates behind the doors.

Jaemin sighed at the corridor and Renjun looked satisfied. “Tinfoil hat, huh? I knew it.”

“Oh, shut up, Renjun.”

It wasn’t Jaemin’s first time visiting the teachers’ office, but he noticed they bought a sofa which was now sitting comfortably next to old rusty shelves full of archived student records.

“You two, come here,” they heard a familiar voice which prompted them to turn around. There, in the dark corner, was sitting the scariest teacher of all those who taught them – nobody other than Miss Ahn, their homeroom teacher.

The boys walked closer, bowed quickly and kept looking at the floor while waiting for the punishment. That woman was terrifying.

Miss Ahn looked at the two from the computer screen.

“I heard my students happened to have skipped most of the day that they should have spent at school? What do you have to say about that?”

Jaemin nudged Renjun with his elbow. Renjun murmured something at him, but Jaemin was quiet.

“Uh, there was an emergency,” Renjun began, his voice barely hearable and shaky. “My aunt was left at the airport and she doesn’t speak Korean or English or anything practical. I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.”

The teacher didn’t look convinced. She pointed at Jaemin. “And him?”

“I don’t know why he left the school.”

Jaemin sent lightnings from his eyes to his Chinese friend and then spoke up.

“I felt sick and my mom picked me up.”

“We have an infirmary at school.”

“It’s a disease I have since I was younger, I have my medicine at home.”

Miss Ahn raised her eyebrows, but it looked like she was going to let it slide this time.

“Alright, kids. You are graduating soon and your exams are on the way, so I won’t bother you with cleaning the roof or something. But, this is showing a bad example to the younger students, so the punishment is that you two make a presentation on some topic you know about and they don’t and present it next week to them. But,” she narrowed her eyes. “Do it properly or else I’m contacting your parents to check if your stories are true.”

At the mention of telling parents something the students’ insides shivered. They began apologizing and thanking the teacher until she rolled her eyes and told them they were dismissed.

Outside the office, Jaemin pushed Renjun to the side as a payback.

“I don’t know why he left the school!” he imitated the shorter’s voice while walking to the class. “You could’ve said I went with you because you don’t know how to use the subway!”

“Hey! I know how to use the subway,” Renjun eyed him. “Now I know why you made me make up an excuse, yours are stupid. Medicine at home…”

Jaemin smirked. “What, it worked… She looked more convinced after hearing my story than after your aunt.”

“Shut up, it was the first thing I could think of…” Renjun whined. “Actually, my only aunt lives somewhere in Europe and probably even if she came here she would have to go back because our families fight so much, but it’s not like someone can confirm it.”

“Never mind, our excuses worked!” Jaemin reached out his open hand to Renjun so he high fived him and then both, but separately, faintly smiled at the successful cooperation.

***

They decided to make the presentation over the weekend, so Jaemin showed up in front of the Huang family apartment doors at 11am on Saturday.

He rang the bell, chewing the bubble gum he bought on his way here. Renjun lived in the neighborhood where there was a murder about a year ago, but overall it was a nice peaceful area of tower blocks. Jaemin looked around. Damn, this building was the tallest in the area. The view from the roof must be amazing.

A moment later he heard quick steps coming from behind the doors and Renjun opened the doors wide.

“Come iin,” he turned around letting the invited enter.

After doing so, Jaemin took off his shoes and involuntarily looked around the apartment. It was cozy there, walls were mostly white, but there were a lot of little elements that made it all look homely – some flowers, wooden plaquettes with English quotes, little drawings framed in different colors. Pretty.

Renjun lead him to his room and disappeared for a while to bring something to drink. Jaemin had to admit, now, Renjun’s room was way better than the corridor!

The room wasn’t as dark as Jaemin expected, judging by Renjun’s dark soul. The windows shone light at the light pieces of furniture which contrasted nicely with the dark panels on the floor. Another contrast was the monochromy of the furniture and panels compared with the colorful painting or graffiti done directly on the light beige wall behind the doors. Jaemin went closer to look at it. Wow. 

It was kind of abstract, a blue and purple strands blending with each other into a bird-like shape, below there was a yellow-ish green-ish oval-like shape which kind of looked like a lake… And trees on its right, not quite in the color palette of a plant – dark blue with dark bright highlights. And somewhere among the trees there was a grey cloud-like shape resembling an animal. The background for the idea was light blue, so it was probably a sky…

Jaemin wasn’t sure what this was supposed to mean, but it looked professional and kind of like these paintings that were being made in videos from New York subways or something.

He could hear some ruffling coming from probably the kitchen so he backed off from the doors, turned around and landed in front of the desk filled with different things stacked onto one another.

He looked closer. Pencils, paper, pieces of cardboard, even watercolors laying peacefully on the side of the desk. Jaemin raised an eyebrow. He himself used to be a fan of stationery back in his youth, but he never had watercolors in his collection. Jaemin picked them up. They looked pretty expensive and professional for sure.

While he was reading the description on the side of the package Renjun arrived loudly with a tray of a juice box and two glasses. He peeked to the side to see what the other was looking at.

“Ey,” Renjun put the tray on the desk and grabbed the watercolors. “Leave them alone.”

“You have so much fun stuff here, dude,” Jaemin sounded impressed and his hands began wandering over the other items.

Renjun saw an oncoming tragedy with his eyes. “Jaemin, if you break something you’re making the presentation on your own,” he threatened with dead serious voice.

Jaemin quietly left the tools of free self-expression alone and pouted. Renjun pretended he didn’t see the pout, but that shit was cute. He turned to take and open the laptop which was on his bed, but got interrupted by Jaemin’s sudden gasp.

“Wait, that’s so cool!” he had his mouth opened and eyes sparkling at something he saw on the desk.

Renjun shook his head and examined what Jaemin was looking at.

“Ah,” he whined. “That was supposed to go to the trashcan, don’t look.”

He took the drawing from the taller boy, formed a ball from it and threw it to place where it belonged. Jaemin miserably looked at the trashcan.

“What the hell! You drew it? It was so detailed!”

“No, it was bad, just a doodle…”

“It was the best drawing of a turtle I’ve ever seen!” he sounded excited and then collected himself. “I mean, not counting professionals…”

Renjun wanted to hit his head against the wall out of embarrassment. “That was a rabbit,” he whispered.

“Rab-?” Jaemin looked at Renjun. “That was a rabbit?”

“Yeah. I’m bad at animals. I wanted to put a rabbit there on the wall, so I practiced a bit,” he said quickly looking at the floor. “Let’s do the presentation.”

He finally sat down on his bed and opened the laptop. He looked up to see why Jaemin wasn’t joining him. The other boy was standing like a still frame, his head facing the painting on the wall.

“Renjun. You painted that wall?”

“Yeah. It’s not finished yet.”

Jaemin made a mute sound and stared at Renjun with awe as if he saw a god descending from the clouds. “You mean I know someone who can do things like these?”

Renjun murmured something under his breath.

Jaemin blinked. “What did you say?”

“I said can this fucker sit down, act his age and finish that damn presentation,” he fired out pretending he didn’t like the wonderful comments.

“Why are you so pressed, Junnie?” Jaemin kept on wandering around the room. “Let me appreciate your art.”

“You can appreciate my art after we finish the presentation,” Renjun tried to ignore the sudden nickname.

“You’re so boring,” concluded Jaemin and joined him on the bed.

When he sat comfortably, the image of the predicament from the school trip flashed in front of their eyes separately. Renjun blinked to make the memory go away and Jaemin hit himself with his hand loudly to forget that thing eternally. Renjun looked at him.

“Mosquito,” Jaemin explained quietly. The memory was still there.  
***  
Three hours later the presentation was finished and the pendrive with the product was sitting soundly on the desk. Renjun was relaxing himself on the ground leaning his back on the bed leg and Jaemin was leafing through one of Renjun’s doodle notebooks whispering from time to time about how cool something there was.

Renjun felt a bit internally anxious about him doing that, he hadn’t drawn in there with the intention of anything being seen by someone else. He normally would have locked all of his belongings in the wardrobe or something, but he… He… HE… He had to admit he liked the feeling of being praised by Jaemin for his little drawings… Gosh, it was hard to admit but he had to.

Another thing Renjun felt a bit anxious about was the fact that he wasn’t really comfortable with Jaemin. He didn’t feel like he was spending time with Jeno or Mark, who were his middle-range good friends. He felt kind of alert while sitting here with Jaemin. Kind of like he had to control the situation. He caught himself thinking about what the other boy will comment and preparing an answer in his head or while making the project he caught himself disagreeing once or twice just out of spite, just to argue a bit with him.

Maybe it was because they were enemies just recently? He wasn’t used to the change? But no, it wasn’t that… Ah, never mind.

He scooted closer to Jaemin to watch the drawings together. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Jaemin closed the notebook and moved so that they were facing each other.

“How did you know you were gay?”

Renjun opened his eyes wide, surprised by both the topic and the directness of the question. “What?”

Jaemin scratched his ear and looked away. “Ah, never mind, really.”

“No, I can answer, just that… I wasn’t expecting something like this…”

“No, I mean you don’t have to, I just-,” Jaemin stopped mid-sentence, unsure of how he should verbalize his roaming thoughts.

“I just?”

“Like,” Jaemin’s eyes fired up. “Like what the fuck! I didn’t expect you to have actual cool interests like drawing and shit! You seem like an actual human right now!”

Renjun touched his temple with irritation. Actual human… “Thanks, Jaemin.”

The other didn’t notice anything and continued. “Donghyuck was saying some bullshit that spending time with Mark made him realize things, but that seemed weird, how could you not suspect anything for sixteen years? You all are like this?”

“What, no,” Renjun said still astonished. “It’s different for everyone. Obviously, everyone is raised in this society where boys are told they like girls even though they don’t know what feelings are. Then, it depends, some people try to blend in and be their straightest selves, some people don’t think about their feelings until they break or just are okay being themselves without thinking about it, some people just know from the start…” he saw that Jaemin was still keeping up with the monologue. “And I just knew from the start. Took me some time to get used to the terms but no big drama on my side.”

Jaemin looked genuinely interested and now that made Renjun a bit scared. He didn’t expect him to be interested in stuff like that, and Renjun didn’t tell a lot of people his story, because not a lot asked.

The Korean blinked realizing that was the end. “What? Just that?” he shook his head. “Donghyuck’s was ridiculous and yours is boring,” he sighed. “Do you at least have a tragic relationship to share?”

Renjun looked at him weirdly. “I once dated a girl in kindergarten, that counts?”

Jaemin raised his eyebrow and Renjun had to laugh. “Look, I don’t even remember her name! That’s tragic!” he continued.

The taller smiled at the sight without realizing. “I was being serious!”

“Me too. I’ve never dated anyone,” Renjun stretched his arms. “I’m going to die alone.”

Jaemin snorted. “We’re young,” he argued.

“I don’t have to be old to know how I’m going to end up,” Renjun answered and reached out for his phone which had just lit up. “Hey, here’s the other one who thinks I’m going to die alone,” he showed Jaemin with amusement the content of the message he got.

Renjun was constantly disapproving of what Donghyuck was doing with his free time for past days. He scrolled through the profiles of single boys who were hunted by his best friend as potential dates for Renjun. Jaemin raised his eyebrows seeing them. “Is he serious? Who are these people?”

“Apparently he is serious,” Renjun shook his head at the bullshit on his phone screen. “Most of these boys are from Seoul’s gay underground, that’s why you don’t know them. Donghyuck doesn’t know them too, probably Mark sends all of these pictures to him.”

“Gay underground?” Jaemin hummed for clarification.

“Like, just LGBT+ teenagers in the city. Or at least these who are out and have a lot of similar friends. I jokingly once called them underground to Donghyuck and we use the term now. Anyways, I’m not going to meet up with anyone from them, so I don’t know why he bothers.”

“Why not meet up with them? You want to die alone?” Jaemin chuckled.

“Hey! Only I can downgrade myself!” Renjun looked at Jaemin and narrowed his eyes. “I don’t like blind dates and so on, I like meeting people naturally. I can’t date someone I can’t be friends with, you get it?”

He got a slow nod in response. “Yeah, me too. I mean I don’t like people who like me just because of how they see me or how I look. I know I look good but there’s a whole personality out there and it’s not ideal.”

“True. But I can’t relate because I don’t have queues of potential lovers behind me.” Renjun knew very well how everyone was drawn to Jaemin like a magnet.

Jaemin pointed at the phone and tilted his head. “You sure you don’t?”

Renjun locked the screen and looked at the colorful wall in front of them. “They would hate me. I won worst personality award for five consecutive years.”

The Korean nodded. “Remember how we were fighting for the first place all these five years? You always ended up winning.”

Renjun turned his head and pretended to hit him. “Only I can downgrade myself!” he repeated, but couldn’t help but smile.

He was so grateful for the janitor who saw him leaving the school, he was going to buy that man flowers. Who would expect having a healthy conversation with Na Jaemin?

***

The green Mitsubishi sped up near-missing two civilian cars while the white BMW drifted through warehouses as a shortcut to end up being the first in the race. In the end the Mitsubishi didn’t manage to knock out the first car and the BMW hit a lamp post and collided with a wall.

“I can’t do this!” Donghyuck threw the joystick on the sofa and broke down. “One more car!”

Renjun stared at the TV. “It’s because of split screen. It’s because of split screen,” he repeated to himself. Normally in single player he wouldn’t even touch a wall, damn it.

They were laying on the sofa not believing that they were absolutely worst at a racing game they used to play two years ago. Donghyuck found it buried in the storage room and texted his best friend to come and check it out. The results, well… Left some room to greatness.

“Eh,” whined Donghyuck. “Hand me my phone.”

Renjun lazily reached out to the coffee table and did so.

Donghyuck checked his notifications and messages and then made a satisfied noise.

“Mark got us the showcase places,” he informed, but then looked closely at the screen. “But, just three…”

Renjun snorted. “Your boyfriend is useless.”

Donghyuck narrowed his eyes at that comment. “He must have misunderstood me…”

“Or he’s just useless.”

“Renjun!” Donghyuck warned him but then looked at the phone helplessly. “What should we do.”

His friend stretched himself on the sofa. “We can share the seats, nobody will notice.”

“No,” Donghyuck began. “They even have security there, it’s an idol school for fuck’s sake. What should we do…” he sat up, suddenly determined. “Let’s think. You have to come because you’re my admissions coach and we were talking about that showcase for ages.”

Renjun had to clarify inside, Donghyuck talked a lot. And about Mark, not the showcase…

“I have to go, duh,” the Korean continued. “And now Jeno and Jaemin… Maybe Jeno has cram school on Fridays? No, he doesn’t,” he whined loudly. “Jaemin isn’t that into artsy stuff… Maybe both of them aren’t interested… I hope so…”

Renjun didn’t know Jeno’s schedule but if Jaemin wasn’t into artsy stuff then he didn’t know who he had let into his house a few days before… This case was hopeless.

“I hate to say it but one of them can’t go,” Donghyuck finished his monologue. “Mark is useless.”

Renjun felt there was an alarm going through his own brain at that moment. One of them can’t go… Jeno or Jaemin can’t go, one of them has to stay home while the others have fun, one of them will feel like he doesn’t belong.

Uh-oh. He knew what to do.

“You said Friday?” he straightened up while sitting.

Donghyuck looked at him and blinked. “Yeah, it’s this Friday, after school. Why do you ask?”

“Ah,” Renjun suddenly put on his worried face. “I can’t go. Shit. I forgot.”

“What? I’ve been talking about this for past two weeks!” Donghyuck narrowed his eyes. “Do you even listen to me.”

“Sure! But like a few days ago my parents told me that, uh, my aunt is visiting us and I have to be there, you know.”

Donghyuck raised his eyebrow with suspicion. “The aunt that cursed your whole family and fled to India?”

“What India…” Renjun was glad Donghyuck was terrible at geography. “No, it’s not this one, it’s my nice aunt. I’m so sorry.”

Donghyuck sighed. “I would be angry at you, my admissions coach, but at least that solves the problem,” he smiled lightly. “Say hi from me to your aunt.”

“Yeah,” Renjun looked away. He absolutely hated lying to his best friend like that, but he had to do it this time.

***

Donghyuck shed fake tears. “You shone through the whole stage! I saw that! With my own eyes!” he pretended to cry and leaned onto Mark’s arm, to which the taller naturally adjusted.

Jeno and Jaemin had stone still faces and wished they were at least a few tables away from the obnoxiousness of lovesick Donghyuck and Mark who didn’t mind all of that at all.

The four of them were sitting in a pizza place next to Mark’s school celebrating the oldest’s performance. It was getting dark outside and the pizza was delicious, all of them had to admit that. By the way, Mark was paying for everything being the best hyung he is so the pizza was especially delicious!

Mark handed him his coke and Donghyuck cheerfully accepted.

“You were also shining through the audience, somehow,” Mark smiled at his boyfriend and Donghyuck cooed.

Jeno groaned quietly and Jaemin looked at him to show him that he also wanted to be at least on the other side of the wall. Jeno nodded, showing that he understood that they were in this together. Third and fourth wheeling… That was so sad.

A waitress passed their table and Mark turned around on the seat and managed to get her attention to ask for the receipt. The pizza was already eaten, so he could slip out his high school wallet and do the hyung’s job.

After the payment was done, they were still sitting on their seats and talking about random things. Mark told them about what recently happened in his school and Jeno talked about the differences between the book he read and the movie based on it which all of them were going to watch at Donghyuck’s a week later. He spoiled a bit, said a bit too much, but none of the present boys read the book so it was okay. Jaemin accused him of discouraging them from watching the movie and Jeno vividly refused to agree.

Then Donghyuck looked at his phone and texted someone back. He sighed.

“It’s sad that Renjun couldn’t go with us. But, as Mark had already revealed,” he sent his boyfriend a quick death glare, “there were only three tickets.”

Mark ignored that remark about himself. “You didn’t say why he couldn’t come?”

Donghyuck hummed and narrowed his eyes to wake his weak memory up. His memory was always weak when it came to geography. “His aunt came to visit their family. Uh, she’s not working in India, that’s all I know,” he explained and then thought about it. “You know what, I’m close to Renjun and all but he doesn’t talk a lot about his family since I barely remember his aunts and he knows mine…”

Jaemin blinked, hearing that. “His aunt who fled to Europe and argues with his family?” he asked for clarification.

Donghyuck clicked his tongue. “I think it’s the other one. You see!” he hit the table. “Even you remember more about his family than I do! Last time Jeno-“

Jaemin stopped listening to him and quickly packed his things to his backpack. Donghyuck stopped talking and all of them watched Jaemin get up.

“You’re going already?” Mark asked, surprised.

Jaemin smiled at him. “Yeah, thanks for pizza and your performance was great,” he repeated what he had probably already said and went out to the mall hall, strode through the stairs and stopped walking at the bus stop outside.

His aunt, huh?

***

When he reached the doors to the Huang family apartment he suddenly had second thoughts. What if it really was an unexpected visit from his aunt? What if he was going to make a fool of himself? He was nervous because deep in his mind he already knew why Renjun chose not to go. He didn’t know why he thought his, to be honest, new friend would do what he thought he did, but it made sense in Jaemin’s head.

He rang the bell hoping Renjun would answer and not somebody from his family. It would be hard to explain that a sixteen year-old they didn’t know was in front of their doors at 9pm just because he had a feeling.

Thankfully, it was Renjun who opened the doors. He was surprised to find Jaemin, or just anyone there, judging by his Moomin pajamas. The house behind him was dark, as if nobody was there besides Renjun.

“Jaemin? Why are you here?” he asked, actually surprised.

“I, uh ehm,” began Jaemin, collecting his pride. “Donghyuck said you couldn’t come because an aunt was visiting you,” he said and then pointed with his chin at the image in front of him. “But that’s not true?”

Renjun blinked. “No, that’s not true. My only aunt lives in Europe and only fights with my family,” he said in an automatic way.

“Yes, I remembered correctly,” Jaemin said in a similar manner. “You weren’t sleeping, right?” He hoped he didn’t wake him up for his nonsense.

The Chinese snapped out of the trance. “No, of course not, do I look to you like someone who sleeps at 9pm?” he challenged.

“In these clothes, 7pm.”

Renjun narrowed his eyes and stepped closer into the cold air. “You wanna offend Moomins in my house?”

Jaemin didn’t step back. “Yes, exactly.”

At that moment a female voice shouted from the house that if Renjun didn’t close the doors she would grill him for dinner the next day. Renjun smiled artificially and turned around to shout ‘okay mom!’.

“You’re not coming in?” he asked Jaemin when he saw the taller standing still in front of the entrance.

“If I can, okay,” Jaemin shyly went in.

Renjun lead him to his bedroom which was now messier than when Jaemin first visited him. The desk was barely visible trashed with school stuff and pieces of paper and there were some clothes on the floor which Renjun quickly swept under his bed after entering the room.

“Oops,” he reacted to the mess. He didn’t expect anyone.

Jaemin muttered that it didn’t matter and then Renjun looked around the room not sure what to do with himself.

He pointed at his laptop lying lonely on the bed. “I was watching a movie,” he explained.

‘Ooh, what movie?”

Renjun smiled bitterly. “A bad one. I’m watching it to waste time, you know.”

Jaemin snorted. “These are the best movies, what do you want…”

They were standing awkwardly until Jaemin moved himself to sit on the bed. He peeked at the screen. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“I would be surprised if you did, it’s one of these alternative festival movies which are supposed to be deep but just have little dialogue,” Renjun shrugged. “I like the cinematography.”

Jaemin was more of a blockbuster movie watcher, but he nodded along pretending he was an expert.

Renjun sighed lightly and also sat down on the bed. “How was the performance?” he asked.

“Really good, you know, a lot of really talented kids. And Mark’s two minutes of fame made Donghyuck faint next to me, we were almost driving him to the hospital,” Jaemin talked dramatically and then looked directly at Renjun. “You should be glad you weren’t at the pizza place, that was a real horror.”

The Chinese blinked and then realized what he meant. “They’re terrible. I don’t know if them being in the same place is better or worse than listening to Donghyuck whining about why they can’t be in the same place.”

Jaemin looked at the frozen laptop screen and reminisced. “I was once left alone with Mark for a while and it wasn’t better. What a pair.”

“You’d think their honeymoon phase should have passed but I don’t think it ever will.”

“I feel bad for these SOPA students once Donghyuck gets in there and they will be sewn together.”

“I think they might not graduate high school. The teachers will have enough and kick them out.”

“They will end up living under a bridge, happy that they’re together but with rotten teeth.”

“One day Jeno will be driving past them in his future red Porsche and Mark will recognize him and ask Donghyuck if he saw him too. But then Donghyuck will push him to the river for looking at other men. And then Mark will be floating in the water, his last rotten tooth left on the grainy sand. And Donghyuck will rip out his last strands of hair and jump to the river to save Mark. And then they will land on a small island in Japan and live the castaway life. With no teeth or hair.”

Jaemin raised his eyebrows and looked again at Renjun. “The fuck, Renjun.”

The Chinese had a fake broken expression painted on his face. “That’s what’s going to happen.” Then he blinked. “I watch too many alternative movies.”

“Yup, you do,” Jaemin agreed with no hesitation before moving closer to Renjun to put the laptop on his lap. “How much do you have left?”

“An hour?”

Jaemin looked at the corner of the screen to check time. “Okay,” he clicked on the play button and leaned back on the wall.

The smell of his hair was still in the air when he did that, Renjun noticed. Great shampoo.  
***  
Jaemin wheezed out of frustration for the movie. “This is worse than I thought,” he said and lifted his head from Renjun’s shoulder to stretch his neck.

It was worth to add that Renjun didn’t know what the last half of the movie was about because about that time Jaemin decided to get cozy and rest his head on Renjun’s shoulder.

Renjun cleaned his throat. “I told you it’s bad.”

“I just thought that,” Jaemin searched for a good expression. “That it was bad for your deep artist soul not like actually bad.”

Renjun scoffed. “I don’t have a deep artist soul, I just draw things there and there.”

Jaemin rolled his eyes, leaned his head on the wall and looked at Renjun. “Keep on being humble and see where it gets you,” he said in a mocking tone.

That made Renjun’s lungs stiff of awe. He was the weakest link for good-looking boys, he felt the whole BTOB discography flying through his head.

The movie about a mother who lost her two sons in a flood was still playing in front of them and Renjun broke eye contact with Jaemin to pretend he cared about the so-called masterpiece.

The Korean didn’t stop talking though. “Why did you lie to Donghyuck?”

Renjun blinked. “You make it sound bad. I just told him the easiest excuse because I didn’t want to go… It’s not that deep,” he explained, all chill, but didn’t even glance at Jaemin.

“You suddenly didn’t want to go when there were too little tickets?”

The air was contained with that question. Renjun swallowed the saliva coming into his mouth as if it wanted to speak on its own. But the thing it would say would sound dumb…

Jaemin sighed slowly, kind of disappointed. “Hey, you deserved to come. That thing you said in the forest that you don’t belong, I didn’t think you really think like this. What I mean is, you shouldn’t have backed off just because other people could come instead of you.”

Renjun raised his eyebrows and finally turned to Jaemin’s direction. He looked sharp at the moment but he spoke softly. “You would do the same, though. With your mentality of being replaced by even air, you would back off quickly and then go all crying in the rain about how everyone betrays you.”

“Hey,” Jaemin pushed Renjun for that. “That’s not true, I’m not like this!”

“Renjun,” the Chinese lowered his voice to imitate his friend’s voice. “You were standing nearer to Donghyuck than me, five centimeters nearer! You’re going down I hate you. And now lemme make a dramatic walk through the park so that everyone can see I’m the angsty betrayed lost boy!”

Jaemin pouted. “I really don’t talk like that…”

“Oh, you do!”

The movie was nearing the end, apparently the mother was actually dead all the movie. Fine art.

“Thanks for sacrificing yourself,” Jaemin said, dragging his characteristic voice through air.

Renjun honestly wanted to go all ‘phew’ and say something about that it was not for him, but it embarrassingly was actually for him and Renjun knew he knew that so he sat miserably in silence and just made a questionable gesture which was a mix between ‘meh’ and ‘you’re welcome’.

***

After they finished talking, Jaemin went to the bus stop to catch the night bus and Renjun was glad it was Friday, because he couldn’t sleep.

When did his relationship with Jaemin became close enough that they predicted each other’s intentions and guessed correctly what they thinking about? And despite that Renjun still felt weirdly nervous around him, actually, the more comfortable Jaemin was becoming, the less comfortable Renjun was around him.

It just felt weird!

Renjun thought to himself, he couldn’t catch feelings. He thought that while falling asleep, while going to school, while sitting in the classroom and while avoiding the mirror in the school bathroom. He felt embarrassed as a prime minister of dissing Donghyuck for liking a straight guy back in the day and what was he doing right now? The exact same thing! It felt terrible.

Oh, Donghyuck couldn’t find out. Which meant, nobody could find out. Because if anyone found out, somehow Chenle from second year, their school’s gossip girl, would find out and then it would be over.

Renjun planned on living a simple life from now one, just waiting for the slight feeling to pass. After all, wasn’t the graduation coming nearer and nearer?

How hard could it be?, thought Renjun after sitting back on his place in the classroom.

A bang of a plastic container hitting the desk made him jump on his seat. He looked up to see the owner of the vanilla milk. Oh no.

“Renjunnie, vanilla milk for you, I remember you liked this abomination,” he smiled at his Chinese friend and Renjun nervously laughed.

“Yeah, thanks,” he managed to speak out before falling into an internal uwu mode. Jaemin went back to his seat and Donghyuck turned his body to look at his best friend.

“He didn’t bring me my favorite chocolate milk,” he whined at his innocent bottle of strawberry milk. “That’s so unfair.”

Renjun patted Donghyuck on his shoulder. “You’re strong, you can make it. People forget.”

“Sob,” Donghyuck said out loud. “Sob sob sob.”

“Big mood,” concluded Renjun.

***

The next week passed quickly in his opinion. The teachers were talking and talking about the exams and they were studying more and more. Renjun had already chosen a high school to go to, it wasn’t one of the best ones in the city but it was enough to get a decent level of education to later get into a good university. Some of the other students from their middle school were also thinking about choosing that high school because it was nearby, but Renjun didn’t care about them. If these past three years taught him something it was that no matter how bad the situation looked like, it would change after some time. So all was good.

The more they had to study, the more time they were spending not studying, the whole Donghyuck clique. They went to the nearby park a lot or to the mall, they were texting more than usual so the group chat was constantly active.

Though, Jaemin… Ah, Renjun didn’t know how to describe it, but Jaemin was everywhere. He had a question for Renjun, or something reminded him of something he had told Renjun about or he made up a quick insult for Renjun or, it really was tiring for him not to think about Jaemin. So he didn’t limit himself…

At that moment for example, the four of them were eating lunch at the cafeteria and Jaemin was practically holding Renjun’s leg between his ankles under the table. Renjun just really didn’t want to know that there was someone worse with skinship than Donghyuck but here they were.

“Boys, English homework done?” Jaemin began talking through spaghetti.

Renjun automatically nodded. He did it the day before though he didn’t focus too much on it because of how much they had to do for Maths.

On the other hand, Donghyuck loudly gasped. “Shit shit,” he quickly reacted and ran to their classroom to take his English textbook and do the homework in the toilet or something.

Jeno sighed at the fact that he left his tray with them. Then he looked at his friends. “We had English homework?” he asked knowing the answer. He didn’t wait for them to respond and without a hint of energy went out of the cafeteria leaving his tray alongside Donghyuck’s one.

“Can’t they take these with them?” Renjun commented.

Jaemin nodded, bewildered. “Animals.”

They continued eating the spaghetti peacefully. It wasn’t bad.

Jaemin let his leg go, so it lightly bounced away to the chair leg. He had already finished the meal and just looked at Renjun. “What are you doing after school?”

Renjun shrugged. “I have two hours of doing nothing, then cram school.”

“Ah,” whined Jaemin. “I technically have cram school too, but I’ll pass.”

Renjun glanced at him, amused. “I can’t believe your parents still think you’ll get into a good school.”

“I’ll get into a good school. Just not very good,” he argued.

Renjun finished eating, stood up and Jaemin momentarily did the same thing. They thought about taking their friends’ trays too but it wasn’t their problem.

On their silent way back to class Jaemin asked Renjun if he had something to do for these two hours after school. And Renjun didn’t lie and said that no, he didn’t have anything special planned.

***

“This is illegal, you moron,” Renjun yelled at Jaemin from the staircase of his apartment block.

“This is perfectly legal. I saw my dramas!” the response from above his head was confident enough for Renjun to raise his eyebrow and just beg to the higher forces that they wouldn’t get arrested for climbing the rooftop which was decorated with a ‘do not entry’ sign.

Renjun cursed under his breath when Jaemin disappeared from his sight range. He touched the metal emergency ladder Jaemin had used and decided that, fuck it, it wasn’t like he would have another chance of going there.

After tiring himself to death, ugh sports, Renjun stood up at the roof and, oh.

The view was amazing. It was different to see just a fragment of it from the window, their windows were facing the street so there wasn’t anything surprising there. But, this 360 degree view from the hill was breathtaking. The smog was floating above them, posing as clouds and the building of a neighboring university looked bigger from this perspective. The trees looked so small… Renjun lived on fourth floor, what did he know…

He looked to his left at Jaemin who smiled at the view. He then looked quickly back at the view. Not a good time to get soft.

“You see? I knew the view would be worth it,” Jaemin said calmly, proud of himself.

“Do you randomly think about buildings when you have nothing to do?” Renjun asked cheekily.

“No, but it’s not my fault you live in the tallest tower block in the area.”

Renjun looked at the green floor, or, roof, underneath them. “Why do they paint these roofs?”

Jaemin blinked and also looked at it. “I… I have no idea.”

“So many mysteries… So many.”

The taller boy looked at the time on his phone. “You have forty minutes left,” he informed.

Renjun hummed. “What are you insinuating?”

Jaemin suddenly looked innocent. “Nothing! Nothing at all!”

“Great, because I don’t plan to skip this time.”

“Whew. A new man.”

Renjun kicked him. “Phew.”

They looked at the view for a while more and then Jaemin spoke up.

“Is it okay for me to say that I think I like you?”

Renjun froze inside and his eyes grew with stress. He answered after a while.

“No, that counts in as straight guys leading gay guys on, that’s not well seen,” Renjun stuttered at the end. “You need to use more fitting words.”

“Okay,” nodded Jaemin. “I think I like you, romantically.”

Renjun’s neck broke after he suddenly turned his head to look at Jaemin. “What?”

“I used more fitting words!” Jaemin defended himself.

Renjun’s hand went through his hair nervously. The blood was pulsating in his ears. He was joking for sure. He had to be. He had to be.

“That’s a bad joke, Jaemin,” Renjun tried to act cool and then theatrically turned around. “No hidden cameras? It never works without cameras.”

“Hey,” Jaemin narrowed his eyes. “It wasn’t a joke. I think I-“

Renjun wheezed before he could say it the third time. He was about to go to a hospital by himself and tell them he needs meds for heart attacks.

“Sure, I can play along,” Renjun made a magical gesture and glanced at him. “You want to what? Hold my hand and so on?”

After saying that he immediately felt a lot of regrets. What would he do for holding his hand. Ah.

Jaemin’s face didn’t hold even a matches-sized flare of nervousness. “Yeah, I could hold your hand and so on.”

Renjun wheezed again, not impressing the taller boy, so he stopped. “Look, I loved this conversation, a great joke idea, but badly executed. My cram school is calling, bye, Jaemin,” his nerves were talking in place of his brain and he almost fell to the ground after tripping over a roof cable. He made a few steps and then Jaemin shouted at him.

“Hey, I really wasn’t joking!”

Renjun turned around. “Yeah?”

Jaemin walked a few steps to stop shouting. “I’m not saying you need to do anything with that information, I just wanted you to know that I’m, well, open-minded so if you’re too then I’m too?”

Renjun was paralyzed upon realizing one thing. “You’re not joking.”

“Nope,” Jaemin said and smiled prettily.

The last wheeze came out of Renjun before he turned around and without any pride he almost ran to the ladder and tripped over the cable just a step from the metal construction.

Yeah, he fell down the ladder.

“Oh my god, are you alright?! Renjun!” Jaemin was shouting from the roof at the embarrassed pile of skin and bones laying below the ladder.

“I’m alright,” Renjun managed to say and then clumsily stood up and walked quickly to the staircase on his right, because everything hurt enough to discourage him from running.

He didn’t remember a single thing from that day’s cram school.

***

In the end… it all didn’t turn out that bad. Despite Renjun’s pride being shattered and no longer existing, they ended up texting all night and then talking as usual at school. And then meeting up after school. And Jaemin was even more of a skinship lover when he had a permission to do so. And Donghyuck asked Renjun if he completely gave up on the guys he had sent him and Renjun told him that yes he did. And Donghyuck told him that at this rate he was going to die alone. And Renjun told him that he’d rather die alone that spend his whole life listening to Donghyuck’s Mark-love-talk. And Donghyuck narrowed his eyes and told him not to be rude.

Three days after the roof scene they were sitting on the river bank a couple bus stops from the school. The first two lessons were called off so it wasn’t skipping! It was already warm despite the early hour and they were revising for the oncoming exams. The knowledge flew in better while sitting on grass.

Jaemin exhaled deeply and looked up from his notes. Renjun heard that and watched the world around him for a bit to relax his eyes.

“I want to kiss you,” Jaemin said lazily.

“Tss tss,” Renjun pointed at the other side of the river. “There are cops there.”

Jaemin looked appaled. “It’s not like they’re going to arrest us…”

“You think so? How about sitting on a grass which has a ‘don’t step’ sign just in front of our eyes?” he pointed at the sign in front of their eyes with his chin. “We shouldn’t lure any unnecessary attention.”

“You’re so boring,” whined Jaemin and then he a sudden idea appeared in his head.

He grabbed his backpack and took out his phone. Renjun leaned on his shoulder to see what he was up to. Jaemin opened Snapchat and quickly took a photo of him and Renjun stuck to his shoulder. He was bombarding the snap with stickers what made Renjun laugh.

“Are you twelve?” he asked.

Jaemin pouted. “I like stickers.”

“Send it to Donghyuck.”

He got a curious glance in response. “Why?”

“Because I told him I can’t sit around in school with him this morning because my dad asked me to help with the refrigerator.”

Jaemin just shook his head. “Poor Donghyuck,” he sent the snap.

“Poor Donghyuck! He was ignoring me all yesterday! Poor Donghyuck!” Renjun left Jaemin’s shoulder alone and began vividly gesticulating.

Jaemin lay on the ground and tried to blindly find Renjun’s hand with his while using his phone with the other one. Renjun just put his hand on top of Jaemin’s hand so that he could hold his hand. Jaemin hummed with satisfaction. And at that moment Renjun’s phone called.

“Oh, that’s a Donghyuck,” Jaemin predicted.

“Yeah,” Renjun looked at the phone in his hand as if it was a foreign object. “Should I pick it up?”

“Probably.”

“Being evil has its downsides,” whined Renjun and tapped at the green button. Wow, he didn’t know Donghyuck could swear in Spanish.

***  
EPILOGUE, a few months later  


Mark looked at the body in front of him. Oh no. Donghyuck looked pretty much dead.

“Where are they,” he mumbled under his breath sloppily. He called Jaemin to come save him from the SOPA freshies party organized by his classmate. It was just the beginning of the school year, so there were a lot of students, new starting this year and older from Mark’s year or even the third years. A huge party.

And Donghyuck drank too much. Mark himself wasn’t in his best condition so the only thing he found himself able to do is to call Jaemin to somehow help them.

He was about to call him again when he heard familiar voices coming from behind him.

“There you are!” Jaemin shouted and ran to the corner to see how bad it was. Quickly Renjun followed after him.

“Oh no,” Renjun reacted. “Should we carry him?”

Jaemin was a little stressed and turned to Mark. “Why did you call me of all people? I have no knowledge on this stuff!”

“You look like you have! You’re blaming me?”

“You should watch where he’s going, you know he’s irresponsible!” Jaemin went on.

Renjun kneeled next to Donghyuck and poked him with a finger. He moved.

“Hey, he’s alive!”

The other two turned around. Mark breathed out. “This is bad.”

Renjun raised his eyebrows at the oldest. “You all are drunk, go home and we’ll take care of him.”

“We’ll take care of him?” Jaemin was surprised.

Renjun nodded and gestured at him to kneel next to him. When Jaemin did so, Renjun’s face expression changed. “You take Mark’s bracelet and I take Donghyuck’s.”

Jaemin looked satisfied. “Free rich kids party. I knew we’d agree on that.”

Renjun saw that Mark was going somewhere so he pushed Jaemin to do his job.

Five minutes later, Donghyuck was sitting soundly on a chair probably sleeping and Jaemin was outside calling Donghyuck’s older brother to come pick up the two of them losers. When the call ended, Renjun arrived with some fancy cocktails and joined him at leaning on the wall of the building.

“You should call Taeyong-hyung to pick them up,” he suggested.

Jaemin smiled, satisfied. “I already did.”

Renjun pretended to tear up. “You read my mind!”

Jaemin didn’t answer and instead he put his cocktail on the bump on the wall and leaned in to kiss Renjun. He kissed him back and a while later they can hear someone whistling from the window they were standing under. Jaemin pulled away and rolled his eyes theatrically. Renjun continued drinking his fancy cocktail.

“It’s good we don’t have to know these people,” he admitted.

“They will on the other hand see Donghyuck and Mark, so in their shoes I’d prefer having us around.”

Renjun nodded. “Yeah, people at our high school will be way luckier.”

Just as the two past enemies were already.


End file.
